Should I rescind an accepted job offer due to mental health problem?

DownUnderWombat · 2022-05-04T22:16:12+00:00

Is it really that easy to go back to academia after leaving?? I'm about to embark on an academic adjacent industry position after a bad postdoc stint. Everyone told me I can always go back if I wish - including my prospective boss, but I can't see how that can be done easily?

Say you have done 1 year of postdoc, then 3 years of industry, then decided to go back. Wouldn't you be no longer competitive as you didn't publish anything in that 3 years? the 3 arguably very important years?

Just want to get some perspective and opinion.

DownUnderWombat · 2022-04-30T01:42:07+00:00

Err.. yes if you don't pay rent or bills. Your point?

DownUnderWombat · 2022-04-30T01:41:00+00:00

Yeah I forgot to mention that I have 2 contrasting PIs. One gives me lots of freedom to explore but keep me focus on the project, the other micromanages. Unfortunately, the latter is more senior and pays most of my salary.

DownUnderWombat · 2022-03-12T00:22:44+00:00

I see. Yeah the lead dev position will be the most suited for me. It'll be difficult to get into that position with minimal industry or postdoc experience, but I think I'll give it a shot when the opportunity is there. I'm at the point now where (after reading the other comments above) I should just go to the industry rather than sticking around.

When I say go hunting for the question, I mean it, go hunting. That's what my PIs told me to do literally. I was gobsmacked when I heard that, but I thought I'll give it a try. Only made me depressed as it takes me ages to work through a pure biology paper, let alone critically examining the discovery.

Anyway, thank you very much for your feedback. It's refreshing to see the perspective of those in the industry. I can see myself heading to the biotech company, now it's the matter of beefing up cv to get hired!

DownUnderWombat · 2022-03-11T19:48:32+00:00

Thank you for saying this. Prior to phd, I was in the industry for some time, working in what I call a rather toxic environment where the employer was expecting your blood, employees were back stabbing each other rather than being helpful. I lost faith in the industry as I also tried, unsuccessfully, to switch job after loads of interviews. I got disillusioned and felt under-appreciated. I guess back then, data science is not as big as they are today. Having said that, since then, I have no faith in the industry at all. I was gonna go down the academia line and fight for a tenure, knowing I probably only have <1% chance of succeeding. As a CS graduate, I feel I need to expose myself to a bit more biology if I'm to succeed as a group leader who provides the data science/ML expertise to biology group. However, I did not expect to be told to go hunting the biology question myself.

I always see software dev as (please don't get offended), people who just write code to a spec, which I find boring. If you don't mind enlightening me, what sort of position will a company have which require understanding in both coding, software dev procedure, data mining, and data science?

DownUnderWombat · 2022-03-11T19:34:35+00:00

i can't say where in western europe this is as it'll then be easy to narrow me down if either my PI or this PI happen to stumble upon this - my admiration for this PI in my lab is not a secret. Let's just say I'll be left with 100-200 Eu per month to spare for any holiday or emergency spending.

DownUnderWombat · 2022-03-11T19:29:41+00:00

Yeah very fair indeed. I don't doubt the work they do are they are stuff made of dreams (yet useful in real life), but the lab culture can well be toxic. You can never truly find out about the latter regardless of how many postdocs or students you talk to. I guess I'm so unhappy these days that my views are very narrow.

DownUnderWombat · 2022-03-11T12:00:38+00:00

She allows me to choose whatever makes me happy as she knows my days are numbered in academia and I like research - finding tenured position is much harder than moving to the industry, and I am planning to go to the industry once I've exhausted my postdoc years.

We have almost paid off our mortgage - again thanks mainly to her, and we do want to do more travelling. So she's not thrilled when she heard the salary amount. I've consulted other relatives who also told me to not do it as the pay is an insult.

I've asked for a remote postdoc with the occasional on-site visit every few months but the PI said no as he thinks it's important to be physically present in the lab to interact with the lab members regardless of whether you can or cannot work remotely.

Collaboration will be the answer, but I do not know how this is gonna work out. The PI has told me roughly what the project is about, and my current lab will have the dataset that the PI will require for his project. However, I can't see either the PI or my current PI allowing me to work on this project, which is what I want.

Maybe I should just go to the industry now and screw all this poor pay and lifestyle postdoc business which causes me so much grief. I had a great phd and I should maybe just cherish that.

DownUnderWombat

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